While stories of kidney failure may have become everyday occurrence, that of Mercy George, an undergraduate of Banking and Finance, draws a peculiar emotion, first because of initial misdiagnosis and her subsequent travails, which included unorthodox approach and a hospital detention owing to her parents inability to pay the bills. Dorcas Egede reports.
MY name is Mercy George and I am an undergraduate of Banking and Finance at Federal Polytechnic, Oko, Anambra State. I gained admission to study Banking and Finance in 2012. I finished in due course and registered for my HND programme in the same school in 2015. I was about to write my HND 1 1st semester exams when the problem started. I realised I wasn’t feeling too well. One morning, I woke up and found out that I wasn’t seeing clearly; my vision was dim. So, my roommate took me to the hospital. At the hospital, I was diagnosed with typhoid and malaria. We started treating typhoid and malaria.
“The doctor there said the reason my vision was dim was because I didn’t have enough blood in my body and eye. My dad was contacted and he told the doctor to do everything possible to discharge me. My father paid the hospital bill and he discharged me after giving me some drugs. As I started taking the drugs, I started seeing gradually. But one day, I took the drug and vomited it. From that time on, I started vomiting anything I took in, except water.
“I soon became lean and my sight started becoming dim again. My friends called my dad to tell him what was going on. He asked them to find a way to bring me down to Lagos. But, they didn’t seem to know how to help with that, so I told them not to bother and travelled down to Lagos myself.
“On getting to Lagos, my dad took me to military hospital. It was there it was diagnosed that I had kidney problem, that my kidneys were not functioning too well and that my legs were swollen because the kidneys were not eliminating fluid very well through the bladder. It was also revealed that this damage of the kidneys was responsible for the dimness of my vision, because the kidney is also responsible for secreting blood, but since mine were damaged, the production and supply of blood had reduced.
“They decided that they were going to give me two pints of blood before any treatment. After that, they said there was nothing to be treated because the kidneys were damaged and I would have to go on dialysis. They asked if we knew what dialysis was, we told them we didn’t, so the doctor educated us. After three dialysis sections, I became fine and was discharged.
“According to them, once people whose kidneys were not functioning well do a maximum of four dialysis sections, their kidneys pick up and they become fine.
“Later, someone introduced a ‘doctor’ to us. We were told she had healed people who had kidney problems using natural remedies. She was invited to my place and after we told her everything, she said there was no problem and that everything would be fine. She told us that we couldn’t take herbal and orthodox medicine together, and that we had to choose one. So, my dad decided that it was better we went with the natural remedies since drugs have side effects which could damage the kidneys further.
“This lady started mixing different fruits and vegetables for me to take. Because of the testimonials we got about how potent her remedies were, I left the medicine I was taking and started taking the things she was preparing for me.
“After one week of taking her remedies, I stopped urinating altogether. The situation worsened. When she saw that there was no improvement, and that things rather grew worse, she stopped coming to the house, but kept in touch on phone, telling me that I should keep taking the mixtures and add prayer to it because the way she was seeing it, it was beyond the physical.
“When things changed, my dad took me to St. Nicholas Hospital on the island. Someone hinted us that the hospital specialises in handling kidney problems. When I got there, I was immediately admitted and they tried to stabilise me before they could even begin any treatment. After the injections and all, we began another session of dialysis. The doctor was like if I kept doing dialysis, the kidney would pick up.
“But the money for these dialyses was too much. A bed in that hospital runs into almost N100,000 per night and a session of dialysis was over N40,000, while the cost of blood was over N20,000. My dad was taking care of all these bills from his business, which was still booming at the time. He sells fabrics for making suits together with my mum.
“After months of several dialyses, I was stable. One nurse advised my parents to stop bringing me to that hospital since all I needed was dialysis. She told them to take me to a dialysis centre close to where we live at Oshodi instead of coming all the way to the island where it was more expensive. But my dad didn’t welcome the idea, so we continued going to the island until he ran into a relative of his whose wife had kidney problem too. It was this man that advised him to take me to a dialysis centre closer home and less expensive than what we were paying at the hospital.
Kidney failure, hepatitis B and tuberculosis
“We started going to one dialysis center at Ikeja. But then, my situation worsened. I was referred to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) for treatment since all they do at the centre is dialysis. At LASUTH, we ran some tests and it was said that I had Hepatitis B. My dad then concluded that if indeed I had Hepatitis B, then I must have contracted it at the dialysis centre at Ikeja.
“We started attending Hepatitis B class to learn how to manage it, since they said it doesn’t have a cure and can only be managed. At this point, I became very afraid. Another x-ray I did revealed that I had tuberculosis. At this point, we were now praying against kidney failure, hepatitis B and tuberculosis.
“I was asked to run the test again before commencing treatment for the hepatitis. When the test result came, they said there was no hepatitis in my body. They also said what they called tuberculosis was not actually tuberculosis but fluid disturbing my lungs.
“I was then transferred to another dialysis centre at Oshodi, where I did full dialysis for complete six months, until we were advised to go for kidney transplant. The doctor said the two kidneys were damaged and he wouldn’t want me to spend the rest of my life on dialysis; that it’s only people who are old that can be managing their lives with dialysis; and that I still had a life to live. He also advised me not to do the transplant in Nigeria, because any transplant in Nigeria is a 50/50 chance. He advised us to go to India for the transplant as theirs was more certain.
“Thereafter we started looking for how to go to India. Through our pastors in Lagos, we were able to contact a pastor in India, who linked us with someone who works in the hospital where I did the transplant. Fortunately, that was the period when this hospital worker came to Nigeria for something. Though his destination was Anambra State, he came straight to our house from the airport. He saw me and checked all my medical reports. Based on the reports, he spoke with the hospital to get me an invitation letter. The letter was soon sent to my email.
“With the help of some people, we travelled to India and I had the transplant done.
“All the money we had left on us was what we used to get visas and flight tickets. On reaching India, we paid $500 as deposit. This was too small compared to the $13,000 they charged us. They refused to attend to me, until our link, who also works in the hospital, pleaded on our behalf.
“I arrived India in March 2017 with very swollen legs; my legs were as big as someone who had elephantiasis, while my body was looking so lean. Following my admission into the Indian hospital, I had my first dialysis. It was then I discovered that there is a very big difference between dialysis in India and dialysis in Nigeria. After each dialysis in Nigeria, I would return home so sick, my mum would have to use wet towel to help cool down my temperature. But, it was different in India. I stood on my own and walked to where my mum was. She was surprised to see me walking by myself.
“After the dialysis, I was told the food to eat and not to eat. I followed their instructions and I started living healthy. I was fine, but they said I still had to do the transplant, as that was what brought me to India. I continued with the dialysis while waiting for my father to join us there, since he was to be the kidney donor. He was however not to join us until almost three months later, because he was looking for money to travel and to take care of the hospital bills.
“Meanwhile, the officials at the hospital were busy mounting pressure on us. They told us not to come to the hospital again and referred us to a public hospital, where they said everything was free and we could do anything we wanted there. By the time I was leaving that (public) hospital, I had been infected with toilet disease. We stayed about a month there and I was on oxygen the whole time. I was also placed on dialysis, but the more I took the dialysis, the more my legs swelled.
“The man that helped us get invitation from this private hospital came to our rescue again; he pleaded with them to accept us back in the hospital. They came and carried me in an ambulance back to the private hospital. By this time, I was already terribly sick. They took me to emergency and stabilised me. They placed me on a bigger oxygen plant. They treated me of the toilet infection and other infections and started another set of dialyses. They insisted that we paid a separate $1000 for stabilizing me. My dad, who had still not arrived then, had to send the money.”
Dad’s timely arrival
“Shortly after, my dad arrived India and the transplant was done, precisely on the 4th of July 2017. He as the donor was discharged five days later, but I had to stay up to nine days extra to be very okay. After the transplant, the hospital seized our passports. My dad had to beg them to release his own so that he could go back to Nigeria to raise money to pay the bills. Days rolled into weeks and weeks into months, yet he was unable to raise the money needed.
“Since the money wasn’t coming in, my dad had to speak with the man that linked us up with the hospital to help us get someone who would pay the money in Rupee, then we would credit the person’s naira account. The man said it would be difficult, but thank God he was able to get a woman who agreed to help us pay the money while we credited her naira account. That was when we were fully discharged in September 2017.”
Asked what the status of the debt was at the time of this interview, Mercy said, “My daddy has been able to pay up the woman that bailed us out of the hospital and I am very fine too. I have returned for my routine check-up early this year and everything is very fine. I’m grateful to God for this new lease of life. I would love to go back to school, but for now, all my dad’s resources have been drained by the illness; his business was also affected before the recent demolition of Oshodi, which took down his shop. Things are really hard now. We haven’t paid our rent in three years. Even though our landlord has been patient because of the ordeal, he is now running out of patience.
“Even to eat now is serious problem. While I was sick, feeding wasn’t a problem because people were helping with that, but now that I’m well, the story is different. I just pray that God will smile on me and make my parents, so that they can be financially stable again and I can return to school.”
INADEQUATE SLEEP: Lack of adequate sleep can raise the blood pressure which in turn affects the kidney. The kidney function is regulated by sleep as it helps to coordinate the kidneys workload so not having enough sleep can disrupt this regulation. Ensure you sleep well as it greatly supports the kidney function.
